Internet Services – Telus sucks

Until recently, my company had a Managed ADSL service with Telus, but when the contract expired in 2011 we had no hesitation in choosing not to renew it.

Perhaps it was just bad luck in being assigned poor account managers, or perhaps this poor experience is common throughout Telus’ business offerings.

Either way, I saw the fact that I was paying $485/month for a 4Mbps down/1Mbps up with an SLA that was heavily slanted towards advantage for Telus (as most SLA’s are) as unneeded.

Other factors in canceling the Telus contract:

Auto-renewal of 3 year term contract, without notice or follow-up

Telus “forgetting” to cancel our Managed ADSL contract after receiving signed letters and repeated call-backs, resulting in many months overages despite the fact that we cancelled the contract

It is unfortunate Internet service is so expensive in Canada, especially for such low speeds. The amount of data that we’re pushing in and out is growing every year, and single digit Mbps just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Over a year ago we added an Internet connection from a wireless ISP, WiBand. This is a 10Mb sustained (20Mb burstable) connection with unlimited GB/month. We have been very happy with this service, and it’s been rock solid for us. Almost all of our services to external clients run over this connection.

With the cancellation of our Telus line, we brought in a Shaw Business 50 connection that is 50Mbps down, 5 Mbps up. While this isn’t guaranteed throughput, it is very cheap (under $100/month) and provides great access for our head office’s general Internet needs. Because we have our WiBand link with an SLA, we don’t need a highly reliable Internet connection from Shaw for general use.

Funny enough, when I asked what Telus had to compete with this Shaw Business 50 service, I was told we would be much better off with a 5Mbps down/5Mbps up fiber service that cost $800/month. Great job there listening to your client, Mr Telus rep.

Despite these nice links, I still long for the day when Canada gets speeds like they do in Northern Europe, with fiber to the home being common and high-throughput links being used.

4 thoughts to “Internet Services – Telus sucks”

I was interested in your WiBand comment. We are considering them as a primary connection because they are half the price of Telus fiber. Can you drop me an email and please let me know what city your Wiband connection is in and how weather affects the service. Any other things I should be worried about?

Nothing has changed. See the problem is the lack of competition. Our company literally HAS to go with Telass. There’s no one else. A couple of our locations now have Wiband, (Thank God!) but most have to be Telass.

From what I can see most of their problem lies with really poor customer service that they don’t have to improve. Their call center in Manila is a joke. They made how many billion last year but they can’t have a call center here? I finally got rid of them at home and I won’t get them again, not for phone, not for Internet, not for anything. Unfortunately I have to put up with them at work.

And everyone wondered why they worked so hard to shoot down the Verizon play dressed in a big Canadian flag. It would have been sorely needed competition for those dolts and we can’t have that, can we?

This is a little late, but at WiBand we are now focusing on becoming more of an internet/data broker. We offer wireless, satellite, DSL, cable and fiber services. If we cna be of any assistance, don’t hesitate to ask.